I forgot to mention, but yesterday, after watching the two Suhr videos, I noticed my neighbour was out so had a quick go just guitar straight to the Rift and a little louder than I’d ever usually play. Nothing even remotely like as loud as either video, so still clean, but with a very satisfying light crunch/compression when hitting the note/chord hard. Sounds superb, exactly how I’d want an amp set for recording. It did however only reinforce my view that I couldn’t live without reverb. It is just a ‘make better’ knob IMHO. By saying that I suspect at the 95% clean amp settings I favour a seriously good reverb pedal would likely be perfectly acceptable. I just don’t want the distorted cranked hard-rock sounds highlighted in the videos, I’ve got the Reeves and Rat for that sort of thing. My goal is just a really good clean sound at a low volume level, and the Rift knocks that one right out of the park IMO.
PS Going straight into the amp definitely sounds better than even my small three-pedal line-up, this using really good (self made, Neutrik plugs, low capacitance) cables and keeping everything real short too. Just a little more top and dynamics.